Developing a Dataset Catalog for the University of Alabama at Birmingham

Summary: Many academic libraries are compiling dataset catalogs to make the research data produced by their institutions more findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. These catalogs use a variety of approaches to gather metadata for dataset records and may be hosted on one of several platforms. Our approach is to use software tools, such as APIs, to locate relevant datasets and harvest their metadata. The metadata is then manually curated and enhanced. We employ the hosted institutional repository Digital Commons to display the dataset records. Combining API harvesting with the batch upload feature of Digital Commons yielded efficient ingestion of many dataset records, allowing us to prioritize manual curation and enhancement of the dataset metadata. The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Research Data Catalog currently contains over 100 dataset records from multiple repositories. This project was supported through the Data Services Continuing Professional Education (DSCPE) program. Statement of involvement: The goal of this project was to make the datasets produced by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham more discoverable, both to university affiliates and to the larger scientific community. This effort is motivated by an increasing push for the sharing of data by funders, and the corresponding need for that data to be findable and accessible. Our positions as information professionals in academic libraries position us well to tackle this issue, as we have knowledge of the online data sharing landscape as well as the needs of researchers and administrators in locating datasets.